I'm heading down to Tassie this coming weekend and looking to climb around the Hillwood and Cataract Gorge areas. I'm downloading (using my iphone hotspot so very slowly) "The Tasmanian Climbing Guide" from thesarvo though haven't seen it yet. Does anyone have experience with this guide? If so, will it cover everything I could ever possibly want to know about climbing in the two areas above?

If not, does anyone have an appropriate (or inappropriate) guidebook I could borrow? If ruined I'll happily replace it, maybe:)

Cheers

EDIT; I have no sense of time and forgot today was Friday! I'm heading to Tassie next weekend;)

Hi Miguel
thesarvo guide has all the info you need for The Gorge, but not for Hillwood. Gerry Narkowicz has maintained a monopoly on that crag. I'm not in Tassie at the moment so I can't help with with the lend of a guidebook or photocopies. Hopefully some of the northern climbers will see your thread and help you out.
Cheers
Doug

Buy the selected best guide for Tassie - it has everything you need for those crags. Thesarvo guide to the Gorge is inaccurate - no topos - interim made up names for some climbs - you'll get lost. As for a monopoly on Hillwood, this is at the request of the landowner. He has only sanctioned our guide and appointed us custodians of the crag under his authority. A few years ago before our guide came out, we had a communal interim guide under a rock at the cliff. Some fool decided to usurp our guide, nicked the notes and published a guide without the landowners permission. The landowner was furious, sent a solicitors letter to him and threatened closure of the cliff unless the piece of shit guide was taken out of publication. So Douggy, I don't appreciate your innuendo about having a monopoly on the crag. We built a relationship over 4 years with the landowner who was very sceptical about allowing climbng on his property. Once climbers had proved they were trustworthy, then he allowed a guide - but it only took the actions of one untrustworthy person to almost close the cliff for good. So thats why Hillwood will never be a free for all on the internet, and first time visitors still need to phone me or Bob to gain access to the cliff.

On 29/10/2012 maxdacat wrote:>On 26/10/2012 Miguel75 wrote:>>Hi All,>>>>I'm heading down to Tassie this coming weekend and looking to climb around>>the Hillwood and Cataract Gorge areas. >>Did you decide to do this after hearing about this new "climbing captial>of Australia" on the ABC 7.30 segment recently?>>:p

TBH, it wasn't until I saw that segment that I learned "Tasmania" had any climbing, and was actually a part of Australia. Until recently I thought it was the third major island in the NZ archipelago;)

On 29/10/2012 Tastrad wrote:
As for a monopoly on Hillwood,>this is at the request of the landowner. He has only sanctioned our guide>and appointed us custodians of the crag under his authority. A few years>ago before our guide came out, we had a communal interim guide under a>rock at the cliff. Some fool decided to usurp our guide, nicked the notes>and published a guide without the landowners permission. The landowner>was furious, sent a solicitors letter to him and threatened closure of>the cliff unless the piece of shit guide was taken out of publication.>So Douggy, I don't appreciate your innuendo about having a monopoly on>the crag. We built a relationship over 4 years with the landowner who was>very sceptical about allowing climbng on his property. Once climbers had>proved they were trustworthy, then he allowed a guide - but it only took>the actions of one untrustworthy person to almost close the cliff for good.>So thats why Hillwood will never be a free for all on the internet, and>first time visitors still need to phone me or Bob to gain access to the>cliff.
Nice riposte, Gerry. Of course you realize you're only kidding yourself when you talk about first time visitors having to contact you or Bob. What percentage of visitors do you think actually do that?
As for The Gorge, thesarvo's guide will easily provide enough accurate info to keep visitors happy for days.
Cheers
Doug

From spring onwards we get phone calls on a weekly basis from mainland and international road trippers asking for permission to climb at Hillwood. Nice to know there are some responsible climbers out there.

On 30/10/2012 Tastrad wrote:>From spring onwards we get phone calls on a weekly basis from mainland>and international road trippers asking for permission to climb at Hillwood.>Nice to know there are some responsible climbers out there

This is nothing to do with responsibility, Gerry, and all to do with control and selling guidebooks.
We've met plenty of climbers at Hillwood who haven't contacted you or Bob - some of whom have tried but found you unavailable - and they have all behaved in a responsible manner in terms of respecting the property.
You could have had a very different dialogue with the landowner had you chosen to do so, as you could have done with the C CT, who have been more than willing to help build the climbing amenity at Hillwood.

On 31/10/2012 Doug wrote:>>This is nothing to do with responsibility, Gerry, and all to do with control>and selling guidebooks. >We've met plenty of climbers at Hillwood who haven't contacted you or>Bob - some of whom have tried but found you unavailable - and they have>all behaved in a responsible manner in terms of respecting the property.>>You could have had a very different dialogue with the landowner had you>chosen to do so, as you could have done with the C CT, who have been more>than willing to help build the climbing amenity at Hillwood.

On this note - whenever I'm climbing in these areas with Tassie climbers and we see this Gerry guy (who I don't know from a bar of soap), then usually we just hide and I could never understand why. Now it is starting to make sense.

The opposite is the case. Nothing to do with control and guidebooks, but keeping a good relationship with the landowner and keeping access to the cliff open. I had a conversation with the landowner yesterday and he is still very concerned about liability for accidents. He is also concerned about litter, fire and the occasional dipstick who brings their dog to the crag. His stance is that ALL CLIMBERS ARE TRESPASSERS on his property and he is just turning a blind eye to it. I have put him in contact with Gordon Brysland to allay his fears of litigation, but nevertheless, we are technically trespassing. So Doug, just stay out of it as well as the CCT - we went to alot of trouble negotiating access and we are lucky to have access to Hillwood in the first place. Your attitude could potentially stuff it up for everybody.

Hi Shortman,
I don't know you from a bar of soap but you sound like a c--khead to me. If you climb in Northern Tasmania, you wouldn't have anywhere near as many routes to climb if it wasn't for my efforts in new route development - about 750 - so lick my butt and suck my balls.

On 31/10/2012 Tastrad wrote:>Hi Shortman,>I don't know you from a bar of soap but you sound like a c--khead to me.>If you climb in Northern Tasmania, you wouldn't have anywhere near as many>routes to climb if it wasn't for my efforts in new route development ->about 750 - so lick my butt and suck my balls.>

Well, that was very pleasant. Good on ya for doing 750 new routes. You must be the gold medal new route guy. Mix that with your very modest and relaxed attitude, and I fail to see why people would want to avoid you.